One of the primary reasons to invest time and effort into business networking is to get more business. Yet, for many the outcome of greater business remains elusive.

Business Networking – How To Get More Business

As a personal business coach one of the first things I ask a potential client, whether it be a self – employed small business owner or a corporate manager or executive, is if they are doing any business networking. Most of them will tell me that they do some business networking.

The main reason they do business networking is to get more business. When I ask how successful it has been the answers range from very successful to virtually no success at all.

How come one person has great success and another doesn’t. Is one’s product or service in greater demand? Possibly, but very often it has nothing to do with that.

Business Networking – Success Is About How You Fish

For a moment visualize a business networking event as a big pond with many fish. You have come together with a group of other people and all of you are fishing in the same pond. Some of you will catch fish, prospects, referrals and customers. And most of you will put your bait on a hook and come up with nothing.

What’s causing the difference in results? It could be the pond you are in. Maybe the fish you are swimming with aren’t ideal for you or your business. But, more often than not it is not the fish in the pond that is the problem.

The problem is how you are choosing to fish in that pond. Especially for small business owners seeking more small business growth and success how you fish is a critical determinant in your results.

Running a small business is a big enough challenge to your time and energy without engaging in business networking that is not producing positive results. So if the pond of your business networking is not yielding the results you desire, yet appears to be a good pond, then you must change the way you fish in the pond.

Business Networking – It’s About The Human Being And Not The Human Doing

How do you catch a fish? It’s easy. You give him some bait where he wants to bite on your hook. The best hook you have is you. It’s not your business. It’s not your service. It is who you are. Most people when you engage them do not need your product or service.

The key is that they certainly may need it at some point in time in the future. The goal is to start building a relationship with them based on who you are, not what you do. In the end they will do business with someone they know, like and trust.

The key to successful business networking is to get beyond the human doing, your business, and let others get to know the human being. Focus on learning about who someone else is. Reveal to them more about yourself. It will give you and them many more reasons to build a solid relationship.

Focus on the human being, not getting business. And, the last part is the most important. If you have business networking functions every month attend them regularly. Even if business is good and you feel too busy attend them regularly.

Great relationships aren’t built with intensity but with regular contact over a period of time. Be consistent in showing up and persistent in building your relationships. When you approach business networking as an essential marketing activity focusing on human beings instead of human doings you will start catching a lot more fish in your pond and even greater small business, large business and personal success.

We buy a car to get us from A to B and the same applies when it comes to running a successful business- you need to have a good business model in place, to get you to where you want to be.

To create a successful business you will need the same 3 key components that driving a car requires namely a reliable vehicle, engine and fuel. So how exactly does this translate in a business sense?

The vehicle

Regardless of whether you’re starting a business online or offline, you will still need to have the right “vehicle “to drive you to success. By vehicle we mean the offer.

To run a successful business, your offer, whether it’s a product or service, needs to;

Appeal to the masses

Generate a high profit or commission

Be good

One way of making sure that your product/service is a good one that will appeal to the masses is to check out how much competition is out there for the same offer. If there is a lot of competition then this will mean that it is a good product that is in high demand.

Your job is to then make sure that you stand out from your competitors by being unique.

So how do you outsmart your competitors?

The Engine

That is where your “engine” comes in. The engine of your business is the system that you use to get customers to buy from you. If you have an online business then one great way of standing out over your competitors is by creating both a powerful website and creating your own unique landing page with a capture box included. By doing this you will start to build a valuable list so that even if your customers don’t buy from you on the first occasion, you can still market to them in the future. This technique can be invaluable in your quest to running a successful business.

If you have an offline business, there are other effective ways that you can build a list of prospective customers, including, storing customers’ mobile phone numbers and email details, so that you can text or email offers to them in the future.

So now that you have got your vehicle (the offer) and your engine (the system) in place, the next vital component needed for running a successful business is to add the right fuel (targeted traffic).

The Right Fuel

The first point to remember when finding traffic/customers for any business is that it needs to be targeted traffic. Just like a diesel car will grind to a halt if you put in the wrong fuel, (petrol), so too will your business, if you market to the wrong crowd. Therefore it is important to spend time working out who your target audience is and to make sure that you narrow your marketing efforts to that audience.

One powerful way to do this is to use social media sites that are free. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter offer a means of joining groups within your niche and to also add followers who fall within your target market.

Another great way to reach your targeted audience is by using paid advertising methods like pay per click or Facebook paid advertising. However, if you decide to go down the paid advertising route, it is better to start off small and scale up once you start making lots of sales.

In my opinion success for your business requires finding a reliable vehicle, good engine and the right fuel. With all three in place, you will have the key ingredients needed to running a successful business.

“I wish for you a life of wealth, health and happiness; a life in which you give yourself the gift of patience, the virtue of reason, the value of knowledge, and the influence of faith in your ability to dream about and achieve worthy rewards…Jim Rohn

Network marketing has always held a special aspiration for people who look beyond conformity and the status quo, the driftwood of today to the horizons of tomorrow. From the beginning, this networking foundation has offered the opportunity for every day people to start a home business with minimal capital and potential of maximum profits. The business concepts are based on the tried and true principles of leverage, duplication of a simple marketing plan and residual income.

There is a new enterprise now that has opened this opportunity to even greater dimensions and created more advantages with major trends in internet marketing, shopping and advertising.

Being a networker is about setting standards of excellence and inspirations to live our dreams. We purposely plan our futures to be bright and fulfilling because we focus on today’s challenges and responsibilities to be the best we can be.

We have learned many of these indomitable skills by listening to a legendary business leader and philosopher, Jim Rohn. He personified the true spirit and heart of a networker and I have never been more proud than to be in this like-minded association. Jim Rohn has recently passed away but his thoughts and guidance live on. His seminars on tapes and CD’s have been friendly narrators on many road trips. His gentle words have fueled many ideas and ambitions about believing in yourself. He made the complex ideas sound powerful and attainable with simple steps to action. He was a tremendous friend to those that knew him with style and charisma, yet with integrity, humility, kindness and understatement. Isn’t that what we would all aspire to? He always appreciated his humble farm roots and his reflections about planting the seed…reaping what you sow…never giving in…laughing and loving, have made a difference in countless people’s lives. Wouldn’t we all want to be able to say that about ourselves?

Undoubtedly, he was one the greatest personal development philosophers of our time. Yet, other than tributes from networkers and friends, there was little mention of his life’s achievements on TV talk shows or the Internet. There were the trite headlines about celebrities, Kardashian gossip, entertainment flubs,flips and fiascos, family feuds and even dating tips for women from NFL stars.

My choice is to take pride in being a networker and in some way at a personal level continue planting these Jim Rohn seeds of wisdom.

My main wish is to return to basics with 3 concepts that make network marketing a fair and democratic home business opportunity even though individual backgrounds may be vastly different. The hardest challenge through trial and error is to find that one business program with a simple System for Success based on 3 Steps. Every mother, father, spouse, boss, teacher, nurse, executive, janitor, truck driver, or college student needs to check out one webinar that explains how this simple system sets up home-based profits enough even for your children and grandchildren.

It’s time for you to look in the mirror and decide, once and for all, you are done playing games, or standing by idly on the sideline while other people, possibly less talented, live in nicer homes and enjoy a better quality of life. It’s time for you to honestly make the decision to get serious about your life, to stop blaming others, and investigate the 3 Steps Plan to become the best that you can possibly be. It’s a simple yes or no answer, one that is clearly demonstrated by your actions as behavior never lies.

Decide on a plan of action or remain in the situation you are in. Either way, you pay the price. What is the cost of doing nothing? The decision that can change your life may just be found in an innovative free shop and save application where average families can save hundreds of dollars if not more. Once you know how to save money on all your shopping items, imagine the incentive to learn more about how to make money by distributing this valuable tool. Talk about rejection free marketing. Who says “no” to a free download App that shows how you never have to pay top price again?

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Draw personal comfort from these two famous quotes by Jim Rohn:

Let others lead small lives, but not you. “Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.”

“We all have two choices: We can make a living or we can design a life.”